Great Web Site

Great Web Site

My name is Cliff and I'm writing from Seattle. I was delighted to find your history page and events on Tensed, Idaho. I would be very interested in upcoming historical events, such as those past sessions held in Clem's store.

A little about me and my connection to Tensed; My mother was raised in Tensed and DeSmet in the late 1920's and 1930's, sometimes moving back and forth between St. Ignatius, MT., and Tensed. She spent a lot of time at the Sacred Heart convent school. Her father was Eugene Sol Louie and he had a cabin about a quarter mile north of Tensed, where a refinery or some sort of industrial building had been constructed, once the cabin was torn down. The last time I checked his hand-dug well was still working. He was a noted builder of log cabins and as recently as 1994 I was able to find a "ruins" of one of his old cabins just west of Tensed, on an old road, with the help of Aripa brothers.

I was fortunate to get to know some early residents of the area, namely Mary Garrick (her neighbor) and Lawrence Aripa and his brothers, Happy LaSarte, Henry SiJohn, and a few others. I used to love to hear the stories my mother would tell of growing up in the area, of the wheat harvest time before large combines and machinery took over from human power.

I drive over every few years to clean up my grandfather's grave at DeSmet and I would be very interested in particpating in any historical society meetings or related events.